Ethiopia – Wolves in sheep’s clothing

By Oman Amulu Akway*

April 18, 2006 – This is a short
rejoinder to the response of the writer who identified
himself as TDA to the article posted by Mr. Apee Ojulu
on March 28, 2006 on SudanTribune.com entitled
“Ethiopia Needs a New Political Arrangement, not a
leader.”
The reader is not interested in knowing the background of TDA whether is a member or a supporter of a particular
political party or not but there is nothing sinister
in telling the truth because he is selling the ideas
of a particular party that has exposed his true
colour.

To begin with, TDA used inflammatory litany toward Mr.
Apee Ojulu on the issue of sea outlet for Ethiopia. It
is clear that every Ethiopian is happy for the country
to have sea outlet. But to me “securing sea outlet
through peaceful and more equitable arrangement for
Ethiopia” as TDA put it, is a real political
fanaticism unless they (CUD leaders) extort the port
from Eritrean. It is no doubt that the CUD leaders and
their supporters would be encumbered by those to whom
the port belongs and that would again result in bloody
war.

As you know, port is meant for import and export of
goods, so in countries like Ethiopia that are
dependent on export of primary commodities, the terms
of trade is against them and the gain from export is
not very much albeit import of capital goods, food
stuffs and key raw materials for domestic industries
are of paramount importance. Furthermore, port is not
necessarily a prerequisite for economic development,
what important is the macroeconomic policies pursued
by the government of the country. Please, be
dispassionate that I am not ignoring the importance of
sea outlet for a given country. The reality is that,
there are countries like Switzerland that are
landlocked yet they are more developed than some other
countries that have sea outlets for centuries. To
break the shackles of poverty in Ethiopia, there is no
need to take a port from any nation by force. So TDA’s
supposition that a sea outlet for Ethiopia is a vital
national economic interest that is worthy of support
and sacrifice is despicable as absurd unless CUD
leaders want to cause conflagration and chaos in the
country.

As you put it,” persons like Prof. Mesfin and Dr.
Berhanu Nega and others in the CUD leadership and
membership are courageous Ethiopian who would always
be remembered and cherished by the people of Ethiopia
for their courage and determination to stand against
tyranny.” With this, I agree with you
indiscriminately but they failed their supporters for
the simple reason that they wanted to quench their
thirsty for power in short period of time. Things
cannot be changed over night, the CUD leaders should
have been patient enough to sell their ideas to
majority of Ethiopia and everybody is aware of the
fact that the omens for their future success are good.

TDA, you have to come to your sense that Mr. Apee
Ojulu has the reason in extenuating government of PM
Meles because right before election on 15 May, 2005,
the political debates and altercations between the
ruling party and the opposition parties were
encouraging for most Ethiopians that CUD could be the
best alternate and as the people expected, they won
election in many constituencies including the whole of
City Administration but to dismay of many they refused
to takeover City
Administration and to join parliament as a strong
opposition party for the people to bank on to
challenge the ruling party for the sake of the “
people who have suffered massive brutality, repression
and pillage under the current TPLF(EPRDF)
leadership” to borrow words from you as you had
referred to MR. Apee Ojulu for being from
Gambella.After losing election, the CUD leadership
should have come to the roundtable to negotiate with
the party the won the majority votes rather than
fomenting political unrest in the capital and other
cities.

To sum up, the oppressed people of Ethiopia need
something better than what they have rather than
“building a hegemonic political structure” that
privileged the privileged at the expense of the
majority. For this, I would like to challenge some
political parties as wolves in sheep’s clothing.

* Oman Amulu Akway is a graduate student in the
Department of Economics in Addis Ababa University. He
can be reached at [email protected]